Our flight to London was on Thursday evening. The flight was uneventful, but getting through customs was a problem. The woman questioned us endlessly and we told her everything we knew, which wasn't much. We didn't have any of the contact numbers with us and knew very little about what we would be doing in London. She wasn't happy. Finally, after recording everything we told her and vowing that we would be hassled every time we entered London for the rest of our lives, she let us pass. The trip to our hotel involved a train ride, a taxi and much confusion. We had reservations at a hotel recommended by the organization. It looked bad on the internet, so I promised Emily that I would get us reservations elsewhere. Well, I didn't and the hotel ended up being worse than we expected. Emily was pissed. We met the guy who had organized our trip and got a ton of useful information. After meeting him, we went up to our room and it was terrible. We ended up hauling our heavy bags through the freezing rain to another hotel. This one was better, so we booked a room.

A couple hours later we were met by a former volunteer named Katy, who took us to the Sudanese Embassy. It was a nice long walk through a beautiful park, but we were immediately turned away. The woman told us to come back the next day between 3:00 and 3:45. We walked back to the hotel, ate at a nearby restaurant and struggled to stay awake until 8:30.

Thursday we walked down Oxford St. (a big shopping district) looking for sandels. Apparently they don't sell sandels in London in January. We made it back to the embassy at the appointed time, met Katy and were again turned away. This time they said that they must send the applications to Khartoum for approval, because we are American. Katy got on the phone with someone who knows someone who knows the Ambassador. He said that he would call someone else to meet us at the embassy the next day.

After a long, cold walk, we made it to the British Museum. There we saw ancient Egyptian mummies ad the Rosetta Stone (among other things). We met Katy, a Sudanese man, another former volunteer and someone who will be going to Sudan in a couple weeks for dinner. It took an hour on the subway to get there (it was located in the ghetto) and the food was definitely not worth the trek.

Today we were at the embassy again. Osama Salah met with the Ambassador on our behalf and we were assured that everything would go through. After many delays and a sprint to the bank for more money, we got the Visa approved. Tomorrow we are off to Sudan!